There are lots of people on social media doing their bit for diabetes awareness, and this is fantastic. However, raising awareness seems to be a big buzzword these days, but what does that really mean, and how do we raise awareness of something effectively? Should I do it by sharing a random image on my Facebook feed that doesn’t tell any of my friends anything at all? Or should I use my social media to share information?
In this post, I will provide a short summary of the information revealed from parliamentary question responses on how many people in Ireland use insulin pumps, what clinics provide them as a treatment option and how many new pump starts are done each year.
My diabetes diagnosis shattered my confidence in my ability to take care of myself, and my plan quickly became to just get through the rest of the term, move home for the summer to my previous summer job and figure the rest out over the summer. Adjusting to my new normal of living with diabetes began while I was still in hospital, or did it?
I realised last year that in all the blog posts I’d done these last 13 years, I have never shared my diagnosis story, so here it goes. My diabetes diagnosis is not unique; many of my friends with diabetes share similar experiences; however, some people end up very ill and may have spent time in intensive care units in hospitals. Thankfully this was not the case for me, but I did feel like I was dying.
The purpose of the document is to provide an estimate of the number of people who are using HSE-funded Flash and CGMs in Ireland and to prompt a discussion around access equality. I believe we need to talk about how fair it is that so many are approved for HSE funding and why some people are still being made to pay.
Since finishing college, I was anxious to get back into my regular pre-college walking routine after a total abandonment back in September. Actually no, that’s a huge fib, I really wasn’t but I am desperate to get rid of some of the Covid kilos that have piled on since I’ve been glued to screens and books and that’s my real motivation. Here’s what happened over the week of dealing with hypers and hypos from exercise.
Before Covid, outpatient waiting lists were a serious, serious issue for people with diabetes, but now that services are resuming at reduced capacity, after a second period of cancellations and with the same understaffed levels, they have become more chronic and have added to our anxiety levels. I’ve changed my care several times in the 28 years I’ve had diabetes and I’ve added some suggestions on how to speed up the waiting list process for you.
On the 24 Jan it will be 2 years since the decision to allow ONLY 3,000 people access to the Freestyle Libre glucose monitor. Why are we still waiting? Why are the HSE focusing on savings of finger stick meters test strips to offset the cost of expanding access to the Libre and therefore forcing people to choose a CGM device that costs almost twice as much as the Libre?
